Aft Deck Musings . . . .

Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Samoset . . . and Beer?

2011-11-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

From a recent posting by Delancyplace.com.

In his book A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horwitz muses on the discovery of America after hearing from a Plymouth Rock tour guide named Claire that the most common question from tourists was why the date etched on the rock was 1620 instead of 1492:

" 'People think Columbus dropped off the Pilgrims and sailed home.' Claire had to patiently explain that Columbus's landing and the Pilgrims' arrival occurred a thousand miles and 128 years apart. ...

"By the time the first English settled, other Europeans had already reached half of the forty-eight states that today make up the continental United States. One of the earliest arrivals was Giovanni da Verrazzano, who toured the Eastern Seaboard in 1524, almost a full century before the Pilgrims arrived. ... Even less remembered are the Portuguese pilots who steered Spanish ships along both coasts of the continent in the sixteenth century, probing upriver to Bangor Maine and all the way to Oregon. ... In 1542 Spanish conquistadors completed a reconnaissance of the continent's interior: scaling the Appalachians, rafting the Mississippi, peering down the Grand Canyon and galloping as far inland as central Kansas. ...

"The Spanish didn't just explore: they settled from the Rio Grande to the Atlantic. Upon founding St. Augustine, the first European city on U.S. soil, the Spanish gave thanks and dined with Indians - fifty-six years before the Pilgrim Thanksgiving at Plymouth. ... Plymouth, it turned out, wasn't even the first English colony in New England. That distinction belonged to Fort St. George in Popham, Maine. Nor were the Pilgrims the first to settle Massachusetts. In 1602 a band of English built a fort on the island of Cuttyhunk. They came not for religious freedom but to get rich from digging sassafras, a commodity prized in Europe as a cure for the clap. ...

"The Pilgrims and later the Americans who pushed west from the Atlantic didn't pioneer a virgin wilderness. They occupied a land long since transformed by European contact. ... Samoset, the first Indian the Pilgrims met at Plymouth, greeted the settlers in English. The first thing he asked for was beer."

A Happy Thanksgiving to All

Remembrance Day 2011

2011-11-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

Although now a few days after November 11th, this powerful piece by Steve Garnaas-Homes, a United Methodist pastor serving in Massachusetts, still deserves thoughtful reading. Used with permission.

He was wounded for our transgressions.
—Isaiah 53.5

Today, on Veterans Day, we honor those who have served in our military. Today we will romanticize them. Tomorrow we will forget them. The next day we will deny them medical care, housing and mental health benefits. The day after that we will ignore them while they suffer the wounds of war, the ravaging effects of doing and witnessing brutal violence, the mixed feelings of having served their country by killing people. We will debate the finer legal points of torture, while they bear the deep psychic scars of having participated in inhuman, soul-destroying duty. (It appears that the psychic damage of torture is as great on the perpetrators as on the victims.) They will wrestle with the reality that 90% of our war dead are innocent civilians, and we will tell them they are not guilty, because it's the price of freedom. They will do their best to believe that. They will bear the scars, the wounds and disfigurement, the nightmares, disorientation and loneliness of having borne their nation's insanity into the world. They will suffer the highest suicide rates in the nation. Of course many combat veterans adapt well and find ways to make their peace with what they've been asked to do. But not without psychic cost. We will thank them, because we don't want that blood on our hands.

But it is. Combat veterans are the victims of our practice of child sacrifice. We offer up their bodies as a sacrifice for our sin, an offering in our religion of war, the illusion that violence is necessary, effective and redemptive, the evil lie that our lives are made better by someone else's suffering. They are the victims of our belief that violence changes anything. As a nation we project our fear of suffering and powerlessness into the evil of war, and they—and all whom they engage in violence—bear the wounds. They are the children whom we have sent to kill some other mother's children. We honor them, but we do not stop sacrificing them.

Today I pray for all who are touched by the violence and inhumanity of war. To all who have given their lives I offer my thanks for their bravery, and their devotion to their country. God grant them rest, and honor their memory. To all who have chosen to serve, and to all who have suffered without choosing, I pray that God will grant mercy, healing and blessing. And in their honor, in the name of the Prince of Peace, who gave his life in nonviolent love, I devote myself to the end of our blood sacrifices, and to the mending of the world.

Boatlifters: The Unknown Story of 9/11

2011-09-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, along with many, many other bloggers commenting on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I posted "A Different View: Reflections on 9/11" Following that post, friend, author, recent widow of a wonderful fellow boating comrade, forwarded this a new story, at least to me and probably to many of you, from that fateful day.

This is a story of how New York's maritime community were also responders. Katharine Herrup, of Reuters, tells it this way.

Much has been written and said about September 11, 2001, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, but one story much less known is the one about the band of boats that came together to rescue nearly 500,000 New Yorkers from the World Trade Center site on the day the towers collapsed.
It was the largest boatlift ever to have happened – greater than the one at Dunkirk during World War II. Yet somehow a story of such large scale became lost in all the rubble. But a new 10-minute documentary called Boatlift by Eddie Rosenstein captures the boat evacuations that happened on 9/11. The film is part of four new short documentaries that were created for the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C.
“Boats, usually an afterthought in most New Yorkers minds, were, for the first time in over a century, the only way in or out of lower Manhattan,” says Tom Hanks, the narrator of the film.
New Yorkers don’t really think of Manhattan as an island since everything from the basics to beyond your wildest imagination is so accessible — not typically a feature associated with island life. But on September 11, 2001, those trapped below the World Trade Center site who could not escape without swimming or being rescued by a boat were acutely reminded of that fact.
“We wanted to tell a story that reminds Americans that this is a country that bounces back from adversity,” the President of the Center for National Policy Stephen Flynn, who had been a U.S. Coast Guard officer, told me. “Our national DNA is resilience. The key for us is to move forward with some key lessons and one of the lessons missing is the strength of civil society and how it responded when 9/11 happened.”
“People were actually jumping into the river and swimming out of Manhattan. Boats were very nearly running them over,” says NY Waterway Captain Rick Thornton in the film.
The captains and crew of the fleet of boats who rescued so many on 9/11 came together with no idea what they would be getting into and no idea whether Manhattan would be attacked again let alone their very own boats. All they knew were that desperate people were in need of help and they couldn’t turn their backs on them, even if that meant putting their own lives at risk.
“If it floated, and it could get there, it got there,” engineer of the Mary Gellatly Robin Jones recalls.
“I never want to say the word ‘I should have’,” says Vincent Ardolino, captain of the Amberjack V. “I tell my children the same thing, never go through life saying you should have. If you want to do something, you do it.”
The New York Waterway, the Coast Guard, ferries, tug boats, private boats, party boats, small professional diving boats, and more ferried hundreds of thousands of people to Staten Island, Brooklyn, upper Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens in less than nine hours. Their crews are typical (in every best sense of the word) New Yorkers and ordinary civilians who came together after a distress call came in from the U.S. Coast Guard in New York.
“I’ve never seen so many tug boats all at once,” captain of the Staten Island Ferry James Parese says. “I worked on the water for 28 years, I’ve never seen that many boats come together at one time that fast. One radio call and they just all came together,” Jones said.
Perhaps one of the most amazing aspects of this mass-scale operation was that were no evacuation plans for such a rescue. “You couldn’t have planned nothing to happen that fast that quick,” Jones said.
It was the ethic code of the seas that made the boat rescues such a success. If a boat needed refueling, another one would pull up alongside it and give it 10,000 gallons of fuel with no questions asked or no one asking for payment. If a woman in a wheelchair needed to be lifted over the fence on the water’s edge to get into one of the boats, there were more than enough hands to help lift her. If people were stranded on a ledge by the water, they would get picked up by a boat. No one was left behind.
One of the arresting images in the film was of a massive throng of people pressed up against and even hanging over the rails along the water waving their hands, hoping someone would come to their rescue. They were at land’s end in downtown Manhattan, no easy place to conduct any sort of boat rescue since there aren’t many docking places or spots to put a boat ramp.

It was a day that lots of local, ordinary people become heroes. It was a day that was supposed to tear America apart, but instead brought Americans together. It was a day that brought out the best in many people.

.

And many thanks, Cheryl Harlick, for passing this on for us.

A Different View: Reflections on 9/11

2011-09-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

We were returning from the Canadian Gulf Islands were we had been cruising for a couple of weeks. On the last day of vacation we were docked at LaConner, sitting out on the aft deck of the Lady Mick, enjoying a cup of coffee. The cell phone rang and there was my stepdaughter:

"Are you listening to the news?"

"No"

"You better. The world is falling apart!"

It was Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. Everything was falling apart. And we joined with the whole world as the horror unfolded. As we cast off and eventually entered the Sound, in the near distance an ominous grey shape appeared as a USN vessel steamed south, almost at flank speed, going where? The Locks were deserted but open; the lock crew wondering and waiting to hear if the locks would be closed. Everything, everywhere, had a pall of frightened uncertainty.

That evening, secured at Thunderbird Marina in Lake Union, watching TV I saw for the first time the horrible sight of someone jumping from one of the towers. I chokingly pointed this out to to my step-daughter, who replied "And some of them were holding hands." (USA Today reported as many as 200 jumped that day.) Horrific!

The next days and weeks were filled with unimaginable images, with uncontrollable feelings and emotions, with confusion, and at the same time, like a drowning man, the struggle to try to make sense out of this non-sense. I found that I simply could not go to church (a somewhat normal practice in times of stress or need) for the rest of that week. I found myself quite withdrawn as I sifted and sorted what I was trying to fathom. I caught glimpses of prayer services taking place around the country, including Seattle. I watched the service at National Cathedral in Washington.

I did get to St. Mark's Cathedral that Sunday. It was good to have been there. As I looked around I saw many familiar faces (comforting). I also saw many new faces, young faces, many not church folk. The mood was one of need, of hoping, of a desire to find some sort of meaning in the midst of non-meaning. We were simply a collection of refugees.

Following the service I discovered an old friend visiting Seattle. Bob is a retired priest. He is also a retired USAF officer having flown with the Strategic Air Command before going to seminary. Bob told me that he had somehow managed to get through to his congressman, asking him if he had the guts to vote against the pending legislation empowering the president to use all military force necessary in response to the terrorist attack. He had responded that he simply could not vote that way at this time. (Only one congresswoman, from Oakland, CA, so voted against that sweeping legislation.) Bob went on suggesting to his congressman that only real response we could make was - - to forgive.

Today, 2011, sifting and sorting through a plethora of editorials, blogs, where are we, really, a decade and a day later? Even Sunday's comics, from Baby Blues, Sally Forth, Blondie, to Doonesbury make their own comment. Where are we?

Jon Talon, in yesterday's Seattle Times, wrote, "In attacking the U.S. . . . one of Osama bin Laden's major goals was to provoke a hysterical American overreaction that would begin bleeding the nation into economic ruin. Mission accomplished?"

Tony Karon, NY Times, helps with some perspective, describing a murderous crime scene in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania becoming a spiritual staging ground for an international war against "a tiny network of transnational extremists, founded on the remnants of the Arab volunteers who'd fought in the U.S. backed Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union."

And the cost? Let alone the trillion dollars spent, more critically the immoral cost of lives, with almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive disability payments, with more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans' medical facilities, with veteran suicides topping 18 per day in recent years, and family breakups, are simply too incalculable to understand.

For many other Americans the decade has been one of growing prejudice as Muslims have been cruelly subjected to Islamophobia, reminiscent, if perhaps not surpassing, that experienced by the Japanese-Americans during WWII.

Jim Wallis writes in Sojourners, "For a moment the world's last remaining superpower was vulnerable, and we all felt it. . . . in our sudden sense of vulnerability we were now, and perhaps for the first time, like most of the world, where vulnerability is an accepted part of being human. And in those first days, following 9/11, America, not the terrorists, had the high ground. The world did not identify with those who cruelly and murderously decided to take innocent lives in response to their grievances - - both real and imagined. Instead the world identified with a suffering America - - even the front of the French newspaper Le Monde ran the headline, 'We are all America'."

Is this still the case today?

Tonight, on our local ABC affiliate, a young woman interviewed said we need to move, we need to remember, we need to forgive. One can only hope. The toll on us, let alone this whole world, this last decade has been unprecedented. To heal is perhaps the new mission to be accomplished.

Eric Darton, author of Divided We Stand: A Biography on New York City's World Trade Center, was being interviewed by NPR's Robert Seigel on "All Things Considered" just three days after the attack. Towards the end of the interview, Darton recounted that the night after the towers were destroyed, his 9-year old daughter climbed up on the kitchen ladder to look out of their Manhattan apartment window at the scene of the destruction. Night was falling, and she said to her father: "I think I'm beginning to see the new view."

We need to recall 9/11/2001, not as just the horrific event it truly was, but now as a means, a hope, a deep sense of resolve to heal - - in all areas of our national and interrelated world's life. For we are, and we can perhaps again be, a people that can "see the new view."

End of Puget Sound News & Weather

2011-08-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

Puget Sound News and Weather, the communications vehicle for the not-for-profit-but extremely-important People for Puget Sound, made its final appearance with today's blog. As its editor Mike Sato expressed earlier this month, PPS is "a people’s campaign for the good of the Sound, a campaign conducted by people, with the hearts and minds of people at its core: To hold ourselves and others accountable to do everything possible to ensure the health of our land and waters.”

The ending of Puget Sound News and Weather apparently is due to budget considerations.

As one who has cruised around the edges, and sometimes in the world of public relations and the media, it is always sad when an organization which relies so heavily on public awareness and people mobilization, as does People for Puget Sound, eliminates its most crucial tool. For me, the genius of PPS, in addition to its interaction with government, has been informing, inspiring, coordinating and making know to all of us what is happening and what is needed on the Sound, and giving us ways to respond. After all, we're the stewards of these waters and we need to constantly know where and how to be good stewards. Puget Sound News and Weather has done that for us, big time!

To eliminate this can be folly.

Mike Sato has been their communications director for 20 years, a person with a strong passion for this mission. Mike plans to continue at least providing the news clippings ("as a community service and because I'm a news junky"). This service will be a private undertaking, bearing no relationship to People For Puget Sound. To continue receiving his postings go now to "Salish Sea News & Weather" and subscribe. I certainly plan to, and I love the new name for Mike's blog!

Thanks, Mike, for what you've done these past two decades, and here's to your new cruising on the Salish Sea. Best of luck and may there be good seas ahead.

Serenading Whales?

2011-06-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

It was nine years ago that we ventured up to San Juan Island for a most unusual event, one that peaked the imagination. Of course, much of the San Juan's can do that, but this was somehow beyond the islands' normal uniquenesses.

Have you ever serenaded a whale, an Orca?

Well, that's what folk do once every year, gathering on the rocks at Lime Kiln Park on the West side of the Island. It all started eleven years ago with the City Cantabile Choir, Fred West maestro. Special speakers are lowered into the waters around this famous scratching site, at least famous to the Orca who scratch there on the rocky bottom, then the singing begins. Some times instrumental, some times by the choir, some times by everybody.

As the sun set over Vancouver Island on that clear, warm evening we joined with the choir . Some folk simply sat and gazed a cross the strait, the Salish Sea, others sketched and painted, and our sound echoed through the waters.

As the evening grew cool, our enthusiasm started to fade with the sun. It was dusk, and despite our best choral efforts, the Orca were nowhere in sight. We had just clambered down from our rocky perch to head down the road to our car. Then a shout, "Here they come! They're coming! They're coming down, heading south!" And, lo, there they were, some way off the shoreline to be sure, but there. The music started up, the whales stopped their swim. They seemed to be listening. One spy hopped (to see who this strange group of sound making creatures were?). Then, after a few minutes milling around, again on their way South, perhaps to Cattle Point.

It was truly a magical moment for us, and perhaps for the Orca, who knows. Species singing to species. Awing. So cool.

We drove back to our island motel almost in silence, savoring the moment.

The 11th annual Orca Sing concert will be held this Sunday, June 19th, starting at 7:00 PM. Bring a flashlight and a $5 donation. Parking will be tight, so consider grabbing a bus from the ferry.

This year's concert will be dedicated to the wildlife and people of the Gulf of Mexico who suffered the devastation of the BP oil disaster.Orca Sing is sponsored by People For Puget Sound, Friends of the San Juans, The Whale Museum, American Cetacean Society--Puget Sound Chapter, The Whale Trail, Orca Network and the City Cantabile Choir.

Hey, why not make this a whole weekend of activity while you're on the Island? Check out the Whale Museum, the book stores, and don't overlook the ice cream joint by the ferry dock!

You will never regret experiencing this. And who knows, the Orca may come again, and this time, perhaps, join you in the chorus?

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning

2011-06-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

An excellent article, espcially at this start of the season for boating, rafting, and swimming, by Mario Vittone.

The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. "I think he thinks you're drowning," the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. "We're fine, what is he doing?" she asked, a little annoyed. "We're fine!" the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. "Move!" he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, "Daddy!"

How did this captain know – from fifty feet away – what the father couldn't recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that's all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, "Daddy," she hadn't made a sound.

As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn't surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard's On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:
Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
Drowning people's mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people's mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water's surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people's bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.
This doesn't mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn't in real trouble – they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn't last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.
Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are in the water:
Head low in the water, mouth at water level
Head tilted back with mouth open
Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
Eyes closed
Hair over forehead or eyes
Not using legs – Vertical
Hyperventilating or gasping
Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
Trying to roll over on the back
Appear to be climbing an invisible ladder.
So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK – don't be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don't look like they're drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, "Are you alright?" If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

Mario Vittone writes on maritime safety with articles appearing in Yachting, Salt Water Sportsman, On Scene, Lifelines, He has also written for Reader’s Digest magazine.

The Charismatic Orca Gets A Break

2011-04-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

Well, this past Friday our charismatic south resident Orcas (aka orcinus orca, or killer whales) got a boost with their protection when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a tightening of the prohibitive zone around the whales. Now all vessels, motor boats, sail boats, and, yes, even kayaks, must stay 200 yards from the whales, doubling the earlier 100 yard restriction and 400 yards away if you're crossing in their path. (Vessels actively fishing commercially, cargo vessels traveling in established shipping lanes, are exempted. Hopefully, the whales know the Rules of the Road as well as where the lanes are.)

Behind all this are the scientific findings on the effect of underwater noise on the whales highly sophisticated natural sonar used to navigate and find food.These new restrictions will take place in early May.

Part of the original whale recovery plan started in 2008 also proposed a half-mile no-go zone along the west side of San Juan Island during the period May 1 through September 30 every year. This has not yet been mandated due to the extensive public response and NOAA's continuing study.

The bottom line is that the orca are endangered, and have been officially since 2005. The Southern Resident population peaked at 97 animals in the 1990s, declined to 79 in 2001, and gradually increased to an estimated 86 today. Noise is not the only threat to the whales. Diminished salmon runs is another. Pollution is yet another. If you want to keep up on the pollution aspect, keep in touch with People for Puget Sound, a premier organization. And if you want to keep up with where the whales are, check out a wonderful site, the Orca Network with up to date sightings and whale news.

Most boaters that I know and have watched are very respectful of giving these mighty animals their space. Sure there are some yahoos, probably the same ones who fly right by you going at full bore, setting you rocking and rolling, and leaving you thinking all sorts of things about their parentage. But in my experience they are, thankfully, few. These new restrictions might mean stronger binoculars and camera lenses, but that's a small cost to pay to protect species, besides you and me, to ply these waters; we do it for our fun, they do it for life.

Another whole group will probably have a lot of trouble with these regulations, at least when they cross the International Boundary and bring their tourist sightseers all clad in their orange survival suits at full speed from Victoria BC into the San Juan Island (Stuart Island's Turn Point and the west side of Spieden Island are favorites). The whale-watching folk there, like Victoria's Prince of Whales which we've seen repeatedly buzz the whales to take pictures, plus other outfits from Vancouver Island, simply harass the whales. Last summer Steveston Seabreeze Adventures, from Vancouver, B.C., received one of five citations from Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife, reports the Vancouver Sun, for coming too close to the killer whales

According to the Vancouver Sun, while Fisheries and Oceans Canada has not made comment on NOAA's new marine mammal regulations, nor said if any similar initiatives are being considered in Canada, environmental groups in Canada are stepping up.

Peter Hamilton, founder and director of the Vancouver-based Lifeforce Foundation, expressed to the Sun recently, "[Canada] has a moral obligation to at least meet, if not make better laws to protect the endangered orcas, because it's a trans-boundary species."

Current Canadian regulations restrict vessels to 100 meters (approximately 110 yards) from whales.

It is nice to know that at some level that we are paying attention to our marine environment, and caring for those with whom we share this part of the Salish Sea.

An Action Alert

2011-04-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

The Recreational Boating Association of Washington serves boaters' interests in a great many ways, including state legislative actions. Here is an important alert just received from them:

OLYMPIA, WA March 31, 2011 -- RBAW ACTION ALERT

Legislative Amendment needed to 2SSB 5622, "Discover Pass" legislation – to prevent boaters from being double-charged!

Please call and/or e-mail your Senator – and particularly Members of the Senate Ways & Means Committee – today regarding a needed amendment to 2SSB 5622, a "Discover pass" bill pending before the Senate Ways & Means Committee. The bill establishes an optional $30 annual license registration fee, and a $10 day-use pass, in order to help prevent the closure of State Parks and other state resource lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Fish & Wildlife.

We at RBAW support this legislation as a needed way to prevent the closure of State Parks and resource lands, particularly those that provide facilities to boaters. However, we believe it is essential that the Senate Ways & Means Committee amend 2SSB 5622 so that boaters who purchase an annual "natural resource investment permit" for launch privileges are not "double-charged" through this legislation. Through the launch permit fees (either $70 or $50, depending on the site and the launch) they already pay, boaters contribute a little over $1 million per biennium to the "Parks Renewal & Stewardship Account" (PRSA) that goes to the upkeep and maintenance and operation of state parks.

There is a basic fairness issue here – boaters can and will pay their fair share to help keep cherished state parks and resource lands open. But they should not pay twice if they already are buying an annual $70 or $50 launch permit.

We URGE you to support an amendment that could come either from Sen. Mike Hewitt (R-Pasco) – or may be under consideration as a Committee Amendment – to prevent this "double-charge problem." If we treat boaters fairly, and prevent double-charges, we win credibility with the public and we probably sell MORE of the "Discover Passes."

Please contact your legislators Today!
E-Mail or CALL LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE: 1-800-562-6000 (It's quick & easy!)

Please help with this amendment – and thank you for your consideration.

Cruising, Canada, and Licenses

2011-03-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of SEA magazine has a good article by Candy Temple, "Smooth Operator (Card)", in which she, with her husband, John, describe getting the Canadian required Pleasure Craft Operator Card.

Since September, 2009 all powerboat operators are required to have this proof of competency card to travel in Canadian waters. This also applies to nonresidents (that's most of us) who cruise in Canada for 45 consecutive days, or more. However, if you hold a Washington State Boater Education card, you're covered in Canada.

Washington has a graduated age requirement: for 2011 anyone 35 and younger must have this card to operate anything 15 horsepower or bigger (including any personal watercraft). Each year the age level increases.

However, if you were born before January 1, 1955, you don't need this card - - you get a free pass. They seem to assume that we elders are safe and wise!

Now here's the hitch. Neither Canada nor Oregon honor this age exemption, or the graduated age phasing in. Every age needs a card if in Canada 45 days or more.

Perhaps they have a different take on "safe and wise elders" than Washington. So if in Canada for 45 consecutive days or more, we safe and wise elders, too, need a Washington State Boater Education card. (And please don't call it a license. . . proponents of the card were very careful not to imply that this was in anyway a license - - so go figure.)

A further hitch? Oregon doesn't have the 45-day "free ride" like Canada. You need to have a card even for one minute on Oregon waters. Check out their regulations.

Need to get this card? You first need to take an exam, the best one is online at BoatUS. While this course and test are free, there is a $10 cost to get the card.

Be safe, be legal, and cruise wisely. And don't let the Mounties get you!

More Than a Pittance of Time For the World

2011-03-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Photograph: Takashi Noguchi/AFP

A soldier from the Japan Self-Defense Force praying before recovering a body.
"May the soul of the departed, rest in peace."

Social Media, More Than A Movie

2011-03-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I attended a well-worthwhile workshop on social media. Sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia (Western Washington State), in a hands-on approach it dealt with what social media is, how to use it, what are its benefits, and what is its power. Yes, its power. What we learned, which was lots even for someone who spends far too much time on line, now from the past few weeks and especially the last few days seems too very benign.

Take the January insurgency in Egypt. Very well prepared and organized, following a very disciplined non-violent script, it saw the overthrow of a lengthy dictatorship, albeit still remaining under military rule. What oiled the movement making it actually work was the organizer's use of social media. Information moved throughout the revolution at lighting speed to hundreds of Egyptians. The protests and protestors were well coordinated. Egypt may well be the first example of a national (international?) revolution happening in real time and supported by Facebook.

Libya, where it seems the uprising may not have been as well planned, saw the government learning from Egypt and attempting, at least to some extent, to block internet activity.

Then this past Friday afternoon, Japan time, came first the magnitude-8.9 earthquake, followed almost immediately by the horrendous tsunamis with waves 23 feet (some reports say 30 feet) high, with the speed of a jumbo jet, racing inland as far as six mile, swallowing homes, cars, trees, boats and ships, people and anything else in their path. And now the loss of life and home and land just, just starting to emerge as aftershocks, nuclear plan failures, and the inevitable risk of disease continue to grow.

Amidst all this incomprehensible horror, social media again came into its own potential. Twitter quickly became the go-to service in the emergency, and its use was immediate and intense. Less than an hour after the quake and tsunamis, with the country's phone system knocked out, the number of Tweets coming from Tokyo were topping 1,200 per minute. Here on our own West Coast Twitter users learned of the disaster late Thursday night and were quickly sharing reports, prayers, and video streams. Twitter users were also announcing the tsunami's estimated time of arrival on U.S. shores - - even before an official government tsunami warning went into effect. (The waves were expected to hit Hawaii first, at roughly 3:00 A.M. local time; Skype provided visual assurance. YouTube gave real-time footage, and even set up a dedicated page just for videos of the disaster. Now families are using Facebook and Google to contact relatives and friends in Japan.

And there are , without doubt, many more stories and example.

Throughout the world people not just witnessed, but in a very real sense, experienced the tragedy via social media. Non-governmental relief agencies, as well as churches, within hours, if not minutes, provided us with avenues to help, primarily posting ways of contributing money, and giving us a means of immediate engagement.

Immediate, real-time, is today's reality, with even national newscast bordering on obsolescence in a world where even one hour ago is history.

NDB station 46006,
600 NM west of Eureka CA

A sidebar for we mariners. As the tsunami moved east across the Pacific you could monitor the wave via the National Data Buoy Center site, especially as it approached the shallow continental shelf off Southwestern Washington state and Crescent City, California.

Yes, social media has power well beyond the casual, oft times sophomoric chatter, that tends to clutter my screen. Like it or not, it really is a new day for many of us.

All of us living on this West Coast, atop our very own geological faults, need to remember that what has happened, and what is happening in Japan, could and probably will be our own experience.

And in this vein, I wonder how we might respond, not just to the disaster itself, but more importantly in the aftermath? Marnie Hunter in an op-ed yesterday on CNN entitled "Orderly Disaster Reaction In Line with Deep Cultural Roots." raises some critical observations.

But for now, please keep the thousands and thousands of Japanese who are missing, who are dead, who morn, who are homeless, who suffer both in body and mind, in your thoughts and prayers.

People for Puget Sound

2011-02-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

A premier organization that actually cares for Puget Sound (certainly our section of the Salish Sea) celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, as well as making a change in its leadership. People for Puget Sound has been working for the Sound's protection and recovery since 1911, and boaters and non-boaters alike owe them our thanks - - lots of thanks.

Mike Sato, Director of Communications, Education and Involvement, issued a press release earlier this week announcing the hiring of Tom Bancroft as the organization's next executive director.

"Tom Bancroft, who holds a PhD in ecology, has had a distinguished career as an environmentalist and leader. Most recently he was Chief Scientist and Vice President of the National Audubon Society. Prior to that he was Vice President of The Wilderness Society. While he will be new to the Puget Sound region, he is well-acquainted with our challenges. Just last year, he headed up National Audubon’s scientific evaluations of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf. He has worked for many years on restoration and management of the Everglades, and he is familiar with Puget Sound and its watersheds from his work with The Wilderness Society."

Dr. Bancroft will be succeeding founder and Executive Director Kathy Fletcher who will be retiring at the end of June 2011.

Dr. Bancroft explained that he boated a lot more when he was working in the Everglades and out into the Florida Keys but not much since then. He hope to be on the water here both for pleasure and for work.

In celebrating its anniversary People for Puget Sound will be taking the S/V Adventuress and the M/Y Carmelits on voyages to communities around the Sound, "reprising the inaugural voyage that launched People for Puget Sound in 1991". For details go to www.onepugetsound.org/voyage.

Retiring leader Kathy Fletcher has been an extraordinary founder-executive director. A personal connection for me, besides supporting People for Puget Sound in this blog, our youngest daughter, while at Western Washington University's environmental science program, did an internship under Kathy. I later met Kathy aboard the classic tug "Owl" while doing some boathandling coaching on Lake Union.

Now we welcome Tom Bancroft onto our waters and into our concerns for a healthy Sound.

This is a most worthy organization, one that has well earned the respect of many in the Puget Sound area and far beyond, boaters as well as non-boaters. You can keep up with them by subscribing (free) to their news clips and weather postings email list entering "subscribe" in the subject line, subscribing (again free) to their electronic newsletter, and, hopefully, then supporting them.

Is Big Brother on the High Seas?

2011-02-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, most of us value independence (we're not that far from our teenage progeny). We like being able to move freely, unrestrained, the world, or at least our little chunk of it, our oyster. We boaters certainly enjoy being able to cruise wherever, whenever, however.

But herein may lie a dilemma, so let's go back a bit. Three years ago I posted an introductory description of the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a great system which identified and shows vessels on your navigation plotter, not by line-of-sight radar, but by radio transmission. Quite different than radar, being radio AIS can "see" behind hills and around corners and show the vessel on your plotter. Required of all vessels over 300 gross tons and certain high-speed yachts, AIS transmits the location, heading, speed, cargo, and destination of the vessel. While AIS transmitters are not yet required of recreation boats, many of us have AIS receivers so that we can receive these AIS transmissions (and have them appear on our navigation plotters). For a fuller description go to my January 2008 posting.

Then this past January I posted a description of an expanded world-wide fun use of the AIS showing vessels all over the world, where they were heading, at what speed, etc., a very creative project of the University of the Aegean, in Mytilene, Greece.

Quite frankly, I'm pretty long on this collision avoidance system

Now comes Ralph Naranjo, noted technical editor of Practical Sailor, around-the-world sailor, safe-boating advocate, and former Vanderstar Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy, raising the issue: Is the AIS chipping away at our freedom?

Naranjo points out in Practical Sailor that that AIS system is also the foundation of the Department of Homeland Security's vessel-tracking system run by the US Coast Guard. Dubbed the National Automatic Identification System (NAIS), security seems to be at the top of the list of objectives, according to Naranjo. He quotes a directive, "AIS data is combined with other government intelligence and surveillance information to form a holistic, over-arching view of marine traffic . . . detecting anomalies, monitoring suspicious vessels, and pinpointing the location of potential threats."

While compulsory AIS transmission by recreational vessels is at best in the distant future (remember that with deregulations of years ago no longer are recreational vessels is US waters required even to have VHF radios aboard!), the notion of AIS "surveillance" does conjure up some concerns, at least some disturbances. Of course such monitoring is de rigor for airplane pilots, commercial as well as recreational, but we're boaters. . . .

Big brother? Orwell's 1984? Privacy issues? Freedom of the Seas? Want to weigh in on this? Simply click "comments" at the end of this posting and have at it.

You'll find Ralph Naranjo's complete article on Practical Sailor.

Illustration courtesy of Practical Sailor

The Social Media: Facebook

2011-02-14T10:19:00.000-08:00

While the film "The Social Network" has eight Academy Award nominations, won four Golden Globes as well as four Critics' Choice awards, plus many more prizes and nominations, Facebook (about which the film is based) continues to make changes without necessarily telling its over 350-million users, and many, many boaters are on Facebook.

[Fact: Facebook is the third largest country in the world based on population, just behind China and India.]

[Fact: Facebook played a crucial role in the January 26th uprising in Egypt, as well as protests in other Mideast countries.]

Last Friday in Washington DC's examiner.com, Tanya Gupta wrote:

Are you wondering why you aren't getting news from Alicia? Did Bob block you? Did you "hide" your friends newsfeed and then just forgot? Are you wondering why more people are not commenting on your posts?

No, you are not being paranoid.

Facebook went and did another change without telling you. Now the default is that your FB page will only show posts from people you interact with the most or your most recent interactions. The result is that close friends stay close, whereas the friends you hoped to get closer to through Facebook are slowly becoming invisible to you.

If you want to stay in touch with everyone then re-set your Facebook settings so that you can keep in touch with all your friends.

Go to the bottom on your newsfeed page and find the button that says "edit options". Then select "all of your friends and pages", and save. This should do it. But remember - this only fixes it for you so that you see everybody else's feed. However FB users who don't know about this will still not be able to see your feed. So let your friends know so that they can change their settings!

(And a shout out to Lesley Scher for passing this on to me)

The New Coastal Radar Is almost Here!

2011-02-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

Almost two years ago we cited Cliff Mass' blog about the possibility of there being a new coastal weather radar for the West Coast. Cliff, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, now gives us a status update, and the news is exciting!

At the recent annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, several of us had the chance to sit down with the NWS folks that are responsible for the installation of the new radar. Let me tell you what we have learned.

Bottom line: the National Weather Service is confident that the new radar will be operational by the end of September (2011).

So by the start of the next storm season, we will finally be able to see the details of incoming storms and weather systems. This is fortunate--next year will probably be a neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) year...neither El Nino nor La Nina. Such years are the ones when the most powerful storms hit our region (but no guarantees storm lovers!!)

Now the details.

First, the location of the radar is now public knowledge: Langley Hill in Grays Harbor County.

A wonderful location, with clear views out to the Pacific Ocean. And the radar will able to see the heavy precipitation on the windward side of the Olympics and over the Willapa Hills. The National Weather Service is close to signing the final paperwork for leasing that site

Second, the National Weather Service now has our radar in hand. This is not a new radar, but one used for training purposes by the military (and the only one available) and identical to the radars used by the NWS over the rest of the country (known as the NEXRAD or WSR-88D radars). I was told it was "lightly used" , sort of like buying a used car from an elderly grandmother. It will be completely refurbished and updated before installation. Using a preexisting radar not only saves money, but the NWS folks know how to maintain and service it. They were nervous about getting a new radar--one different than the current network.

Third, our radar will be one of the first in the nation to be updated with dual-polarization. All the current radars are single polarization, which means the electromagnetic radiation it emits has only one orientation--horizontal.

In dual polarization, two orientations (horizontal and vertical) are emitted and received. Why is this good? Well, by getting the two orientations all kinds of magic is possible---determining the shape and type of precipitation, getting a much better handle on the intensity of precipitation (especially in terrain), and more. Eventually all the NWS radars will have it, but this will be one of the first.

Fourth, our radar will be the ONLY one in the nation using a zero degree scan angle. Weather radars scan in two ways. First, they constantly turn in azimuth (0 to 360 degrees). During the first scan the antenna is directly at an angle .5 degree above the horizon. Then it does a scan at 1.0 degrees, then 1.5 degrees, etc. Here is a figure that shows you the height of the radar beams for the various scan angles close to the radar (up to 120 nautical miles, 220 km).

Now the lowest scan is near the surface close to the radar, but get 100 km out and the beam is 1000 meters up in the air! And at 200 km out the beam is 2000 meters (over 6000 ft) above the surface. So you are missing what is happening lower down. These radars can view 300-400 km out, so you can miss a lot at low levels, particularly at a distance. And WE want to see as much as possible at low levels over the Pacific!

Several of us have pushed the NWS to do something special with this radar, allowing a zero degree angle, and they have agreed. This will allow us to see much farther out at low levels than normal and will be a boon for viewing weather out over the Pacific. Again, no other NWS radar in the country has this capability--hopefully our radar will inspire the NWS to try this elsewhere.

During the next few months, a lot of action will begin at the site. Trenching for utilities, putting down a concrete pad, erecting a building for the generator, putting up the tower, and more. The radar should be installed midsummer. By late September a local meteorological revolution will occur and for the first time one of the stormiest areas in the country will be able to see incoming storms. And folks in the coastal communities and those in the marine industries of the Washington Pacific coast will have what the rest of us have enjoyed for years...decent weather radar coverage, with all the safety and economic benefits. Finally, I should note that Senator Maria Cantwell deserves credit for getting the resources to make this happen.

With good radar coverage, incidents like the New Carissa grounding (on the Oregon Coast), will hopefully be less frequent.

Cliff Mass' blog is listed to the left of this posting.

Intriguing headline: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt"

2011-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

From The Washington Post:
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees, 29 minutes.
Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

Oops! Never mind. This report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the Associated Press and published in the Washington Post -- 88 years ago, and currently in the Library of Congress archives with the fascinating story behind it. The reality of global warming, while critical today, was evidently apparent years ago.

(With thanks to Mike Harlick who passed this on to me.)

Tea Time

2011-01-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, slate.com posted a piece by Christopher Hitchens on tea (actually he was commenting on Yoko Ono’s tribute to her husband, in which she recalled that they often made tea together).

“Just after World War II, during a period of acute food rationing in England, George Orwell wrote an article on the making of a decent cup of tea that insisted on the observing of 11 different "golden" rules. Some of these (always use Indian or Ceylonese – i.e., Sri Lankan – tea; make tea only in small quantities; avoid silverware pots) may be considered optional or outmoded. But the essential ones are easily committed to memory, and they are simple to put into practice.

“If you use a pot at all, make sure it is pre-warmed. (I would add that you should do the same thing even if you are only using a cup or a mug.) Stir the tea before letting it steep. But this above all: "[O]ne should take the teapot to the kettle, and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours." This isn't hard to do, even if you are using electricity rather than gas, once you have brought all the makings to the same scene of operations right next to the kettle.

“It's not quite over yet. If you use milk, use the least creamy type or the tea will acquire a sickly taste. And do not put the milk in the cup first – family feuds have lasted generations over this – because you will almost certainly put in too much. Add it later, and be very careful when you pour. Finally, a decent cylindrical mug will preserve the needful heat and flavor for longer than will a shallow and wide-mouthed – how often those attributes seem to go together – teacup. Orwell thought that sugar overwhelmed the taste, but brown sugar or honey are, I believe, permissible and sometimes necessary.”

This brought back warm memories of my very early years when my parents had tea umpteen times a day (Dad was English; Mum, Canadian. And we had lived in Columbo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the late ‘30s. Dad being an early riser would bring Mum her cup first thing in the morning, in bed. As I recall tea was drunk mid-morning, for lunch, late afternoon before a pre-dinner sherry, in the evening before bed. The tea pot was always pre-warmed, loose tea used (Orange Pecoe and Pecoe, from Ceylon, naturally) - - tea-bags were never tolerated, steeped just so long with a tea-cosy keeping the pot warm, strained, just the right amount of milk and sugar added, thank you. To make a good cuppa was an art.

Many years later, in the hills of Korea while attached to a British Army unit, at a break a large can (someone in the section always had a beat up rather grubby one tied to his small pack) would appear, water brought to boiling, a handful of tea thrown in, a bit more of a boil, then off the fire and a dash of cold water thrown in to settle the leaves, and you had your tea.

Actually, I never liked tea.

January 8, 2011

2011-01-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

Photo: Thanks to the Rev. Suzi Robertson, Vicar
Good Samaritan Episcopal Church,
Sammamish WA

Scanning the Globe

2011-01-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

After a nice week of crystal clear skies, yet cold, a time when one could look from the Kingston-Edmonds ferry at sails tacking across this southern end of the Salish Sea (aka Puget Sound), enjoying great frost-bite sailing. But now the weather has moved in with grey skies, and rain. Though a bit warmer, snow is forecast mid-week. Time to hunker down with a warm stove and get comfy writing those Christmas thank-you notes and finishing up those cartons of eggnog.

A few posts ago, December 5th, 2008, to be exact, I wrote about the Automatic Identification System, or AIS as it is more commonly called. In a nutshell, it's a radio system, and being a radio system it can see "vessels" when you or your radar cannot. Overlaid on your plotter, it shows vessels that "are just around the corner", thus giving you time to make course corrections. You can read more on this by going to the archives to the left and clicking on 2008, December, 5th. A great safety device, as well as a fun one to monitor when at anchor. You get all sorts of information about the vessels you "see" - - you "see" the vessel's name; if it is "at anchor", "underway using engine", or "not under command"; type of ship and cargo; tonnage; dimensions; speed and course over ground; call-sign; MMSI; and destination, and when it will get there. I did notice that military vessels don't say much of anything on their icon, something akin to sailors and soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms in Starbucks (Hey, I can see you!).

AIS is becoming more popular, with some larger recreational vessels now transmitting their information while the rest of us just "read" what they're saying.

And when at evening anchor, calmly nursing a cool glass of wine, it doesn't bother me one bit when my wife and traveling companions kid me as I sit tracking vessels on my plotter. "Look, there goes the B.C. Ferry "Spirit of Vancouver Island" leaving Tsawwassen. And there's the tug "Intrepid III" with a tow, just rounding Moresby Island." Wow, just another form of mariner relaxation.

But now you can go even global, thanks to the creative work of the University of the Aegean in Mytilene, Greece. Those lads and gals of the Department of Product and System Design Engineering have wonderfully created and host a world-wide AIS, Marine Traffic.com from which you can track vessels all over the globe. Right now, as I write this post, their page shows 20,461 vessels being tracked.

A great way to pass the time, a sort of nautical "Where's Elmo?", as you're hunkered down and waiting for clearer skies and calmer seas.

And if you haven't yet done so, check out AIS for your own vessel. I got mine through Milltech Marine, a local Northwest company with great service and support.

Thanks to Mike Harlick and Rod Scher (author, The Annotated Sailing Around the World) who separately introduced me to the University of the Aegean site (which is also a hint asking you for your ideas for this blog . . .).

Setting a New Course

2010-12-23T20:12:00.000-08:00

January was named for the Roman god Janus, the protector of gates and doorways. He was pictured as two-headed, with both heads bearded; one head looked forward while the other looks aft, with a retrospective view.

A few weeks ago fellow boaters and friends came ashore for dinner with us. As the evening drew on, and being faithful readers of this blog, they asked, "So, what is this blogger's block you last mentioned all about?" As I stumbled to come up with an appropriate response, John added, "What I really like are the comments and the ideas you mention, not necessarily the 'how to' stuff" (or words to that effect). Gives one pause. Not being an editor of Chapman's Piloting I may well be burned out on the 'how to' stuff.

So a new course is set as we look forward like Janus, one which continues nautical matters, but also veers at times to touch on other interests, as the description of the blog at the top of the page suggests. A new course with a new name: "Aft Deck Musings . . . ." A new course with a new name and now more folk joining this cruise as new addressees join greatly increasing the current 400+ viewers currently receiving (and hopefully, reading) this blog.

But, and this is very important, our well respected CruiseMasters Boating Instruction program is still very much alive and on course. Almost 600 boaters have taken this program since it started thirteen years ago; that's 1,252,100 client/hours of instruction! Click on the web site to the left to find out a lot more about CruiseMasters.

So, Happy New Year, and here's to our new heading!

I hope you enjoy it.

Photo: moored at Ganges, Salt Spring Island, B.C., 2006

It's Been A long, Long Time

2010-10-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

A six-week cruise (on asphalt, not water this time) covering 6,999.0 miles port to port (too tired to go around the block for that final mile) and covering Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Jackson, WY; Steamboat Springs, CO; Lincoln, NE; Nashville, TN; Santa Fe, NM; Sedona and Grand Canyon, AZ; and Bryce Canyon and the Great Salt Lake, UT.

An equal time catching up at home and decelerating, plus jumping in with patient new clients for CruiseMasters Boating instruction.

And the world goes on and happenings happen since my last posting on June 4th.

The disastrous Gulf Oil leak has been stopped, but the disaster, easily forgotten beyond the Gulf, lingering on for how many more lives and years . . . People for Puget Sound's wonderful and dynamic executive director Kathy Fletcher announcing her retirement next year as that influential public advocacy group celebrates it's 20th . . . that organization's efforts to have Smith and Minor Islands (off the west side of Whidbey Island) named as a state aquatic reserve made official this week with a signing ceremony in Coupeville, with Protection Island now in their sights as a next aquatic reserve designation . . . the boat brokerage business struggling upward but still very soft . . . the Salish Sea designation becoming more popular with boaters and cartographers . . . Loran-C officially dead, we were one of the last areas closed down . . .

A new Orca calf born in August to L pod, part of the southern resident population which makes the San Juan's their home . . . new federal regulations on the horizon to further protect the whales, with fines likely to be 30 to 40 times those of the state . . . for the 2011 boating season boats also may be banned from within 200 yards (currently 100 yards) of the whales . . . the entire west side of San Juan Island (where the 87 resident whales spend the majority of their time) possibly off-limits in the near future to all boaters . . .

Apple's iPad and iPhone4, bought in Nashville and Salt Lake City, respectively, now integral fixtures of this Mac-prone family . . . a second iPhone 4 making its appearance when the first went (groan!) overboard into Poulsbo's Liberty Bay . . .

Argosy Cruises' venerable MV Kirkland, a restored 1924 wooden-hulled car ferry with a fine history on the Columbia River and later on Puget Sound before being converted to a tour boat plying Lake Washington, caught fire last month and is now beyond restoration . . . the large chamber at the "Locks" opening and closing (on a very limited scale) by hand after being struck by lightning . . . US Navy's statement that "a confluence of factors" apparently came into play although "we cannot definitely say that the USS Port Royal caused the incident", explaining the ship's wake that destroyed thousands of oysters that were washed up high and dry on Hood Canal beaches two months ago . . .

And most recently, and personally very frustratingly: "blogger's block"; How do you restart a blog after almost a half year's silent absence from the pathways of cyberspace . . .

Yes, we're still here, enjoying this unusual warm weather while awaiting La Niña . . . Are you still out there?

Photo: At the Red Valley, on the way to Bryce Canyon UT

World Environmental Day, or is it?

2010-06-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Random thoughts from the aft deck.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is World Environmental Day.

But it is also a day of downers with the big oil gusher in the Gulf still spewing with little promise of an end in sight, at least not right now for the sea creatures and the birds and the coastal marshes and lands, let alone the folk who live and work on those shores. Irresponsible criminality doesn't even come close to describing what lies behind (underneath?) this. Perhaps corporate hubris on a giant scale comes closer.

Looking at charts of the spill in far away waters, with little reference to scale, doesn't quite carry the devastating impact.

Want to make it closer to home?

Thanks to People for Puget Sound's Facebook posting, "Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster" you can do just that. Click on Location (just above the chart), enter Seattle (or anywhere else you'd like), then click on Move The Spill and you'll get a sense of what this would mean if it happened here (or elsewhere).

To be sure, a downer of a way to end a week. But for many Gulf shore folk, not to mention all those Gulf critters who use to fly and swim and crawl, this week has been their end, literally.

Wonder when we'll learn . . .

Photo: A seabird covered in oil wades in the surf at East Grand Terre Island along the coast of Louisiana, June 3.

A Memorial Day

2010-05-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

The honoring of those who were killed in our wars has a special place for me, as it must do for countless others. Though frankly, I have some difficulty in saying that "they gave their lives"; I'm not sure that was their intent when they joined and went to war. Going into action was a way of defending values and causes, and if this meant that you were injured or killed, that was the cost. But of all the men (there were no women in combat then) I've served with, I can't say that they joined the Forces to "give their lives".

Which is all the more the reason to honor them.

For many years the time of honoring was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the day that the Armistice was signed ending the so-called Great War in 1918. As a youngster growing up in California years later, that was the day the Legion handed out poppies (remember Flander's Field?) and solemn ceremonies were held at the town's cenotaphs as wreaths were laid and vets remembered their chums and toasted them well into the night at Legion halls across the land.

Memorial Day has an interesting history, staring in the mid-1800's as a remembering of the Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. And it well may have started with formerly enslaved blacks who created a Confederate cemetery from a mass grave to individual grave sites in Charleston, North Carolina, and marked May 1, 1865 as the first memorial, or 'Decoration' day. It wasn't until 106 years later, in 1971, that Memorial Day became a nation-wide observance and a federal holiday, reaching beyond the South to all of the USA, to be observed on the last Monday of May each year.

An unique side-bar, at least for Canadians, is that Newfoundland and Labrador also have a Memorial Day. During the First World War Newfoundland was a largely rural Dominion of the British Empire with a population of 240,000, not yet part of Canada. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was deployed first in Gallipoli, and at the end of that campaign the regiment spent a short period recuperating before being transferred to the Western Front in March 1916. In France, the regiment regained battalion strength in preparation for the Battle of the Somme. The infantry assault was to began on July 1, 1916 and at 8:45 a.m. the Newfoundland Regiment received orders to move forward. All the officers and slightly under 658 other ranks became casualties. Of the men who went forward only 68 were available for roll call the following day. For all intents and purposes the Newfoundland Regiment had been wiped out, the unit as a whole having suffered a casualty rate of approximately 90%.

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador observes Memorial Day during the morning of July 1 (now Canada Day) at the National War Memorial in St. John's and at the cenotaphs around the province, flying the Union Flag at half staff, and in the afternoon and that evening celebrates Canada Day with the rest of the Canada, of which they became a province in 1949.

Be it an Army of the Confederacy memorial, a memorial of the United States forces in the Great War and World War II, a memorial of those who fell in Korea (which was my war), in Viet Nam, in the Middle East, and in all of those conflicts small and large of recent memory, we do them a grave injustice if we do not remember their dying. We perhaps do ourselves an even greater injustice if we do not remember, humbly and not with noisy and hollow bravado, what those thousands and thousands of deaths meant.

For many, Monday will be simply part of a three day weekend, and three day weekends play an important part in the our hectic and oh-so-busy daily lives. But it would be good for each of us if we but took a moment to reflect what this Monday is really about, to center in for a moment of time, to reflect on why we even have this particular Monday and what it may, what it can mean for each of us and our common humanity on this fragile island planet we call our Earth.

Lest we forget . . . . .

Photo: the National War Memorial, St. John's, Newfoundland

BP's Gulf Oil Spill

2010-04-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mike Sato, People for Puget Sound's great director of communications, for passing on this web site that is up to the minute on the Gulf oil situation:

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/

How It All Started

2010-04-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

From today's delancyplace daily email, a bit of history to enlighten your “Tax Day”.

Faced with the unprecedented cost of the Civil War, the U.S. implements an income tax:

"With steady news of the Union's defeats in 1861, public confidence fell sharply. ... Adding to [Abraham] Lincoln's concerns, the Treasury secretary [Salmon Chase] reported that he had underestimated the cost of the war for 1861-62. Rather than $318 million, Chase now put the figure at $532 million. And only $55 million in taxes was expected.

"The Union army's defeat at Bull Run in July 1861 cooled the desire of banks to lend to the government. Chase and congressional Republicans decided they must raise taxes aggressively to produce more revenues to reassure investors. They first considered a property tax, a method last used in the War of 1812 ... [but] the suggestion evoked a sharp reaction from populist and agrarian interests ... [and] intense congressional opposition led to a search for a tax that would be considered fairer by rural constituencies. Legislators were aware of the various features of the British income tax, which had first been proposed by William Pitt the Younger in 1798 to pay for weapons and supplies in preparation for the Napoleonic Wars with France. Implemented in 1799, the tax featured graduated payment rates, with the lowest set below 1 percent and the highest at 10 percent.

"The idea of a federal income tax was widely regarded as radical and nearly inconceivable. Those suspicious of any increase in federal financial power considered it another attempt by the federal government to undermine the power of the states. Wealthy Americans deplored it as an unjust and heavy-handed federal intrusion. ... [However,] in need of revenues and anxious to offset grumblings that low-income farmers and workers were bearing the brunt of the war's cost due to high tariffs, the [Congress] passed legislation levying ... a 'flat' 3 percent on incomes above $800 signed into law by President Lincoln on August 5, 1861. Most Americans made far less than $800 - the average annual income that year was $150 - so the vast majority did not have to pay the tax. ... Interest on mortgages was made deductible ... Congress attempted to increase tax fairness further, as well as obtain additional revenues, by including in the bill an inheritance tax - the first in U.S. history - on estates in excess of $1,000.

"To improve tax collection, Congress adopted another practice from Britain called 'collection of revenues at the source.' ... It required federal agencies to withhold taxes from the pay of civilian and military employees and railroad and financial institutions to withhold taxes before distributing dividend and interest payments to investors."

(Robert D. Hormats, The Price of Liberty, Times Books, 2007, pp. 63–69)

So now you know how today all started. Have a nice day!

Duwamish Alive

2010-03-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

DUWAMISH ALIVE!

RESTORATION DAY MARKS 40TH EARTH DAY ANNIVERSARY

Earth Day celebrates its 40th anniversary this April and Seattle celebrates with its 5th annual Duwamish Alive! Earth Day Restoration on Saturday, April 17, at multiple sites along Seattle’s ‘hometown’ river.

Duwamish Alive! brings together over 30 conservation groups and governmental entities organizing over a thousand volunteers to work at 12 work sites in the river’s lower watershed.

Work sites include a river cleanup by kayak and canoe, shoreline salmon restoration, and forest tree planting. Families, company groups, clubs and fraternities and sororities are encouraged to participate, and no experience is necessary.

These volunteer restoration projects complement government efforts to clean up the contaminated sediments at the bottom of the Duwamish River. Improvements in the health of the river will benefit people, wildlife, and runs of threatened salmon on the Green/Duwamish River.

“The restoration of the Duwamish depends on community, non-profit, government and corporate partners working together to restore the urbanized environment,” said Dhira Brown, project coordinator for People For Puget Sound. According to Brown, the Duwamish River Estuary has less than three percent of its original habitat remaining and the project’s goal is to help bring back at least 30 percent of the river shoreline for wildlife habitat.

At the North Wind’s Weir work site, volunteers will be planting thousands of marsh plants and spread mulch around the sapling trees and shrubs at the newest restoration site on the river. A ribbon cutting ceremony and a ‘run of wild salmon’ will celebrate the official “opening” of the North Wind’s Weir Estuary Restoration Area.

Working at the North Wind's Weir site are People For Puget Sound, King County, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle.

The workday at all the sites begins at 10 AM and concludes at 2 PM. After the workday, volunteers are invited to attend a free Earth Day Festival at Pathfinder School in the Delridge neighborhood. The Festival will feature food, kids' activities, informational booths, music, and special Earth Day surprises.

More information on sites, volunteer signups, sponsors and participating organizations is found at DuwamishAlive.Org. To volunteer, email da@pugetsound.org or call (206) 382-7007.

Late-March Three-dot Meandering

2010-03-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

Remembering way back when Sweet-Sixteen was this young man's dream and not a tournament, but go Huskies!! . . . celebrating the passage (finally) of a health bill and recalling my posting last August 9th which resulted in one lost blog addressee yet surfaced lots more affirmative comment, including docs, plus new blog followers. . . hearing a senior very conservative pol in England state, "Well, today the States finally joined the rest of the industrial nations . . . when tea was a positive and enriching daily parental activity (five times a day), not a crude bashing-prone party . . . musing that a small piece in the health bill requires restaurants to now post calorie content of menu items (enough space on a Big Mac wrapper?) . . .

Wondering how mongers like Beck and Limbaugh and their ilk get sponsors, let alone listeners, and if the good ol' mayor of Mt. Vernon is still handing out keys of that fair city to those likes . . . if words like "nigger", "faggot", "baby killer" will continue to trump civil discourse, spittle included. . . if race-baiting and fear-mongering will be the language of tomorrow's body politic . . . if the "loyal" opposition will ever admit their complicity in fermenting all this extreme nastiness . . . trying to figure what renagades Washington's Attorney General to suddenly become oh so-constitutional threatening to block (with some other state AGs) the health care legislation. . .

Remembering yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination, a true champion of human rights and economic equality in a country that tromped on both, and a witness to what real faith is really all about . . .

Musing if there is a more spectacular scene than taking the ferry from Port Townsend to Keystone last Friday . . . not counting the Skagit Valley's lush vibrant yellow carpet of daffodils . . . and the wild rush watching thousands of snow geese swarming the valley's fields like excited teenagers at a rock concert . . .

Remembering the late San Francisco Chronicle's late Herb "Bagdad by the Bay" Caen's signature three-dot column-style (which daily delighted my mother and thousand others), so admired and blatantly copied here . . .

And finally wondering how this posting can possibly be justified as "nautical", perhaps calling this all jetsam and flotsam?

Kilochan II

2010-03-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

I don't always highlight a particular brokerage, but a recent email twigged some warm nostalgia.

It was the Summer of 1986, July 11th to be exact, that I took ownership and command of the 1962 37' ChrisCraft Tri-cabin, the "Angel Witch". I had bought it from a young broker (who rushed his check to the bank, probably to make a first payment on his new house!) The vessel had been moored in Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island as a live- aboard for 1-1/2 years.

The name didn't appeal, and we soon renamed her after my grandparents' British Columbia coastal homestead and my grandfather's work boat, "Kilochan". The original Kilochan (c. 1911-12) puttered from North Vancouver, BC, up the BC coast servicing and repairing the many lumber camps' equipment. No one was ever sure of the exact spelling of Kilochan, derived from a coastal Indian name. Anyway, I recall my Dad's stories of Kilochan heading out from NorthVancouver to head North, having to time the First Narrows current off Stanley Park so that at maximum throttle the stout vessel would go forward, not backward, with the flood current.

The day after gaining her new owner, the newly named Kilochan II made her first new-owner voyage from Lake Union to Jackson Cove on Hood Canal, home of the BSA Camp Parsons, with the intrepid crew son David Jackson and good-friend Mike Evans (avid scouter and Group Health doc). That was the start of many glorious cruises and a whole rediscovered life for me.

One of my favorite yarns was a three-generational cruise with David and my Dad (aged 87). We had spent a delightful, quiet evening at anchor in a deserted bay just off Port Ludlow. No one around, nothing but primitive shoreline, supping good single-malt scotch, not saying a word, gently watching a sea otter, a kingfish and a heron working the shore line. Of course there was the friendly seagull hovering in hopes of another helping of cheese-wiz. He was there, patiently waiting, the next morning. Tide was low so we eked out with Dave at the bow with a lead line. Today that quiet bay is wall-to-wall homes noisily cluttering the whole shoreline.

Sometime later, leaving Shaw's Blind Bay and then Friday Harbor, we made for Cattle Pass and a return home. Weather clear, minimum wind, going with the current, right at the narrow we passed an incoming tug going full bore. Our first "rock 'n roll" experience on the Kilochan and stuff went everywhere. I had the helm, Dave at my side hanging on, Dad with his perpetual lit pipe standing in the companionway to the wheel house exclaiming, "Marvelous! Marvelous!", probably bringing back memories of WWII days on tankers sailing the North Atlantic. The galley sole was covered with Grape-nut-Flakes, Dad's favorite, and which he'd forgotten to stow when we left.

On that same run I made like a seasoned navigator. We were to close on a buoy just off Smith Island. I make it easily, feeling quite smug, only as we closed on it to have it turn, look haughtily at me, and then gently submerge. So, no longer relying on very large sea lions as a way points, we quickly replotted our way home.

Kilochan II was a marvelous vessel. Not only was she my live-aboard home for many years, she also brought back many, many boating memories. I loved her, and she taught me a lot.

So, back to July '86.

The broker was a Bruce Ramon, now president of Wolfe Marine. Bruce just announced that Wolfe Marine was moving April 1st (no April Fool's joke implied, I assume) a few yards west into the Bob Picot building. The move doesn't mean Wolfe is closing shop. Far from it. The new look will no longer have on-site brokerage-moorage. Boats for sale will be at the boat's own moorage. A wise, perhaps risky, move in these tight times? But then, boats always look better in their own slips rather than huddled together in a broker's corral. As Bruce puts it, "a greater focus on listing and selling, rather than the catch and release of marina operation."

Take a visit to Wolfe Marine.

O Canada

2010-03-02T16:09:00.000-08:00

Before someone brands me as a male chauvinist, there were really TWO Team Canada vs Team USA gold medal hockey games. We all saw the spectacular overtime Canadian win Sunday afternoon. But did we forget the women's game three days earlier, when Team Canada shutout Team USA 2-0? I think we did.

So, here's to Canada's gold medal women's hockey team . . . . .

WAY TO GO, CANADA, EH?

Vancouver 2010

2010-02-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

A spirited non-nautical musing.

This morning I mentioned to a group of folks that having dual-citizenship, I could root either way at this afternoon's Gold Cup hockey game, but that I did have a bias, which I wouldn't expose to them.

But now?

OH, CANADA !!!!!!!!!!

YES !!

Oh, yes. Please excuse the shouting.

The Olympics and The Weather

2010-02-13T21:03:00.000-08:00

OK, this is not exactly a boating post. That is, unless you decided to cruise up to Vancouver for the Olympics. On the other hand, however, I suspect that even boaters might have driven up to the Olympics. For the rest of us, we watch on the delayed (bad, bad NBC) broadcasts on TV.

But if you're waiting, and hoping, for weather that better fits what's needed and wanted for a Winter Olympics, you're probably going to be disappointed, very disappointed. Well, probably not as disappointed as our Vancouver neighbours and relatives, not to mention the local committee.

In a nut shell, it looks bad. As Cliff Mass, UW weather guru and my favorite weather authority (officially, professor of atmospheric science), describes in his latest blog posting, " the Olympics venue will be better for surfboarding than snowboarding. Heavy rain. Thick fog" for the next few days. Check out Cliff’s posting.

Ugh!

While even that most powerful International Olympic Committee can’t control Mother Nature, and slush happens, I can’t help but feel sorry for Vancouver, the athletes who won’t break world records, and my own Canadian roots - - Vancouver and North Van are probably my ancestral home.

But the Games will go on.

And we will watch and be thrilled and be amazed at the athletic skills of, oh, so many young men and women who have gathered to test their skills and delight their fans.

And thank you all for that!

And the Great Northwest will continue to be the Great Northwest, come rain or high water or slush.

Now They've Gone And Done It!

2010-01-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

An AP bulletin today brought the grim news. "The plug is being pulled" was the lead sentence. In three weeks it will come to an end.

For years we heard that that this would happen, only to hear a bit later that there would be a reprieve. Now, no reprieve. They really mean it.

After over 25 years of popular use, the LORAN-C navigation system will end Monday, February 8th when most of the 24 transmission towers will be turned off, the remainder being shut down by October 1.

LORAN, the acronym for long-range-navigation, was developed for military ships and aircraft during World War II, and in 1957 a civilian version, LORAN-C was introduced. The basic system involved radio transmissions from two geographically separated towers, with the receiver measuring the time-of-arrival difference between the towers. It was extremely precise, pinpointed your exact position, your Latitude and Longitude.

I used my Ross LORAN-C for many years on the Lady Mick, eventually adding a GPS. While the GPS was far faster computing changes (LORAN-C always took a few seconds to 'catch up' if the change was severe), I always found my LORAN-C to be more accurate than the GPS when it came to getting me precisely to a waypoint or a particular spot out in the waters. I could rely on arriving sometimes within 10 yards of a target! Not bad.

While many, if not most recreational boaters headed for GPSs - - many didn't even know of LORAN-C, or else dismissed it as a technological relic, commercial fishermen seem to still use it as a trusted system. Well, not after February 8th, they won't.

The Department of Homeland Security, according to the AP, says that the elimination could save $36 million in 2010 and $190 million over five years. The US Coast Guard says it will result in eliminating 256 jobs.

LORAN-C

R.I.P.

Check Lists and All That

2010-01-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

For years I've tried to impress on clients taking the CruiseMasters Boating instruction program, as well as other boaters recreational and professional, the use and value of check lists. In my own publication, "The Art of Basic Boathandling: A Training & Reference Manual" (which clients get free!) I must have at least a dozen sample checklists just waiting for the boat-owner to adapt for her or his particular vessel; for fueling, for preparing to dock, for leaving the dock, for anchoring, just to name a few. Not exactly exciting reading, but important, nevertheless.

Now comes some strong authentication: "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right", by Atui Gawande, published by Metropolitan Books. Dr. Gawande, an American-trained surgeon from India, describes his book as being about how to prevent highly trained, specialized workers from making dumb mistakes. In a recent interview by the Seattle Times Dr. Gawande describes the key things about a checklist. It has to be short, limited to critical steps only. Generally the checking is not done by the top person. In the cockpit, the checklist is read by the copilot; in the operating room it is done best by a nurse.

For us boaters, our cruising partner (assuming that we are at the helm) could, and should, be the reader.

In his interview with Time's reporter Bruce Ramsey, Dr. Gawande traces commercial pilot use of checklists back to a flight in 1935, when Boeing's B-17 was being tested by the Army Air Corps. On that first flight it took off, stalled, crashed and burned. The new plane was complicated, and the highly experienced pilot had forgotten a routine step.

Sometimes hierarchy can present a problem. Ever met a skipper who knows it all? The doctor wondered how the this might play out in an operating room after a nurse saw a surgeon touch a non-sterile surface.

Nurse: "You have to change your glove."

Surgeon: "It's fine."

Nurse: "No, it's not. Don't be stupid."

Back to Ramsey's interview, highly intelligent and trained people are, occasionally, stupid. And the more complicated tasks become, the easier it is to crash and burn with even a 1% error rate on each step.

Brings to mind a time we were anchored in Port Townsend Bay while attending the Wooden Boat Festival. As evening came so did the wind, and all that night, while we held fast, other boats were breaking loose and quickly blowing past us, some being chased by rescue boats, one ending up on the rocks near the ferry terminal. It was not a nice night. Our guests, berth in the forepeak, experienced nothing but pounding and bouncing all night long. (They still cruise with us, though.) A friend who knew the area well wisely hauled anchor and made for Mystery Bay; We stayed put, not really knowing the area and trusting a firm anchor.

The next day, though feeling very confident having made a good anchoring, since the wind was still strong we decided to make for the safety and quiet of the Boat Basin harbor. Pretty full, but we got a commercial slip, and a comfortable night following. The next day as we left for Seattle, as we pulled out I heard a whip-snap sound but couldn't relate a cause, so on we went. The wind was now quiet, the sea almost glassy. So we cleaned up lines and fenders, and there it was, the female end of the shore power cord, still fastened to the boat, but no cord! I had forgotten to disconnect the electric cord at the dockside. An embarrassed radio call to the harbor master to say that there was a still live electric cord afloat in his slip (great for electrolysis), and then a mental self-flagilation for not using the checklist, the 'Leaving the Dock' list, that is.

So much for earlier confidence.

So, make use of your checklists, and get things right.

And if you read this in time, catch Dr. Gawande's appearances in Seattle this Sunday 7:30 and 9:30 PM at Town Hall; Monday 8 PM at the Sorrento Hotel; and Tuesday Noon at the Washington Athletic Club. Tickets through brownpapertickets.com.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

The Huron Carol ('Twas In The Moon of Winter Time)

'Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds had fled
That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim and wondering hunters heard the hymn,
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found;
A ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round
But as the hunter braves drew nigh the angel song rang loud and high
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

The earliest moon of wintertime is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory on the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt with gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

O children of the forest free, O seed of Manitou
The holy Child of earth and heaven is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant boy who brings you beauty peace and joy.
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

This, Canada's oldest Christmas carol, was written by Jean de Brebeuf (ca. 1643), a Jesuit missionary to the Hurons. "Gitchi Manitou" is Algonquin for "God".

The carol is sung by Heather Dale, and sung in Wendat (Huron)

A Blessed Christmas to you all!

Mike

Santas & Sailors

2009-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Only nineteen days until Christmas!

Of course the merchants have been extolling all of us to start celebrating yesterday! Buy now! (and jump start the final fourth-quarter days). Seems to me that this push starts earlier each year. Soon we'll have Christmas sales starting right after Labor Day (did you just say that they already have?).

But to a deeper level. A singular character invoked at Christmas time has many, many names: Saint Nicholas; Santa Claus; Sinterklaas (also called Sint-Nicolaas or De Goedheiligman) Dutch; Saint Nicolas, French; Bishop of Myrna,

Right here in Seattle we have a constant reminder. Saint Nicholas Cathedral on Capital Hill, on 13th between East Howell and East Olive, is one of the oldest parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia in the United States, founded in 1932 by Russian immigrants who fled the Communism that invaded their homeland after the 1917 Russian Revolution.

But it is not just the young, and the young at heart, who celebrate St. Nicholas.

Sailors also claim St. Nicholas as their patron, carrying stories of his favor and protection far and wide, and St. Nicholas chapels were built in many seaports in the Mediterranean and beyond.

Nikolaos, is the patron saint of Greece, where his primary role is as the protector of sailors and seamen. At Christmas small fishing boats honor him, especially in the islands, with decorations of blue and white lights. Tradition has it that his clothes are soaked with brine, his beard always dripping with seawater, and his face covered with perspiration because he has been fighting storms to reach sinking ships and save men from drowning.

Greek ships carry an icon of St. Nicholas, as he is regarded as master of wind and tempest. Sailors light a candle before the icon, a small model of a ship, praying for safe passage. When a ship is in danger the captain prays making a solemn promise to bring a tamata, a model of a small ship of silver, gold, or carved of wood, if they make port safely. On return from such a voyage, the captain and sailors take the model (or painting), representing their ship, to church. In thanksgiving for their safety, they place it before a St. Nicholas icon. It is given as testimony to protection received, not as intercession for future aid

Revered as the great protector, St. Nicholas' feast is one of great devotion. The Greek Navy pays tribute to the patron saint of sailors with a special ceremony at the Hellenic Naval Academy.

Devotion to Saint Nicholas is also shown by the many small white chapels that dot the coastline. These chapels, dedicated to Satin Nicholas, have been built in gratitude to God for protection on the seas. As nearly every island family has members working in shipping, the navy, fishing or sponge diving, it is customary for folks passing one of these chapels to enter, light a candle, and pray for their friends' and relatives' protection from turbulent seas. Many families name a son "Nikolaos" in honor of the saint.

St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, is also part of Epiphany celebrations held by the sea. Priests bless ships anchored in harbor, in St. Nicholas' name, asking him to watch over each one, bringing it safely through storms and back to harbor. Ships then blow their whistles and church bells ring as a cross is thrown into the water. Sailors dive to see who can retrieve the cross.

So today, St. Nicholas' Day, December 6th, you sailors and mariners, remember our patron saint as you make plans to cruise the Salish Sea.

And perhaps coincidence, but tonight is also the Seafair & 76 Special People's Holiday Cruise when nearly 400 decorated boats will host approximately 4,000 developmentally disabled guests for a special cruise around Lake Union and Lake Washington, no doubt making St. Nicholas' heart glad.

Cut some slack for the commercial hype that permeates these days.

Let the young anticipate the joy of Santa Claus.

And for those of us who will celebrate nineteen days hence the birth of the Christ Child, let us one and all rejoice!

For a good telling of the legend of St. Nicholas, go to Customs of Advent and Christmas, as told by Victor Hoagland, C.P. (It's almost a 4th century economic recovery plan).

The icon is by Aristidh Milaqi "Saint Nicholas, the Patron Saint of Sailors" (Icon on wood, 2009)

Congratulations, Puget Sound Partnership!

2009-12-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

From People For Puget Sound's excellent web site:

This week marks the one-year anniversary since the Puget Sound Partnership unveiled its road map for recovery of Puget Sound by the year 2020.

A year ago we greeted the Partnership's Action Agenda with the observation: "The main question now is the question that has been front and center throughout the whole process: Are we going to get the job done?"

A year ago, Partnership Executive Director spoke at REI and laid out the details of the Action Agenda.

This week, the Partnership listed its first year accomplishments:

"Today we celebrate the one year anniversary of the Puget Sound Action Agenda, and as we reflect back we are proud of the successes and accomplishments made in one of the hardest economic climates since the Great Depression.

Our recent successes:

• Guaranteed $50 million in federal funds for 2010, more than doubling the amount of federal money from the year prior. The money will be distributed to the U.S. EPA and other agencies for implementation of the Action Agenda.
• The U.S. EPA approved the Action Agenda as the new Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for Puget Sound under the Federal Clean Water Act. This important approval helps direct federal funding to Puget Sound restoration, and is an important element in the Puget Sound Partnership’s role as a conduit for federal funds.

Protecting the best remaining places:
• We are leading the effort to establish Marine Protected Areas.
• With DNR, we are developing an aquatic habitat Conservation Plan to protect critical marine habitat.
• We are strengthening Shoreline Management Act statutes and regulations to require conditional use permits for all over-water structures.

Restore ecosystem function:
• Key oversight and coordination role for significant state and federal funding for salmon recovery, estuary and salmon habitat restoration. Examples include Nisqually Delta restoration, Elwha River floodplain, Fisher Slough marsh and others.

Stop pollution:
• War on stormwater. We are developing a comprehensive stormwater strategy.
• Leading the effort to develop and implement incentives and remove barriers to using Low Impact Development.

Engage the public:
• ECO Net established, with over 600 members and 500 organizations.
• Launched the “Puget Sound Starts Here” public awareness campaign.

Thank you Puget Sound for your continued support and involvement, and please share your Puget Sound success stories with the rest of our community. Let’s take a moment and celebrate everyone’s hard work to clean-up, restore and protect Puget Sound."

Reprinted with kind permission of Mike Sato, director of communications, People for Puget Sound.

Salish Sea: You're 'Official' Now!

2009-11-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

The name Salish (pronounced SAY'-lish) Sea can now be used on maps (and, hopefully, charts) and other materials, the result of being officially adopted this past Thursday by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names. We posted on this blog on November 5th that Washington State, and earlier Canada, had approved the naming of this great body of waters from Olympia north to Canada's Desolation Sound.

Now we can watch NOAA run to update their charts.

The painting (above) by Joel Nakamaru, as reproduced on the Washington Sea Grant calendar, depicts the sea life from orca to oysters in our marine environment.

Remembrance Day 2009

2009-11-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

This is an encore posting from last year's, updated, and now with a closing comment. Many of you commented via email following last year's posting, comments that were reflective, touching, moving, as you remembered the cost of war and your own experiences.

For me, November 11th will always be Remembrance Day. Ninety-one years ago the armistice to "end All Wars" was signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiegne, France, to take effect at eleven o'clock in the morning - "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." Originally known as Armistice Day, it was changed to Veterans' Day here while renamed Remembrance Day in Canada and much of the rest of the British Commonwealth.

During the late '60s, while stationed in Ottawa, Canada, on every November 11th, and as the government's chief press officer (seconded from the Army) I was responsible for co-ordinating media coverage of the observances at the National War Memorial. Dignitaries of every stripe were there, led by the Queen's representative to Canada, the Governor General. Mounted at the cenotaph were four armed sentries and three sentinels – two flag sentinels and one nursing sister – posted at the foot of the cenotaph.

The first year I had this duty the Governor General was Major-General Georges Vanier, a tall, striking figure (he had an artificial leg), a World War I hero and one of Canada's few Victoria Cross recipients, and very much a soldier's soldier. (His son, Jean Vanier, is the founder of L'Arche)

Everywhere you'd see people wearing the red poppy, the symbol of the Day, remembering the fields of poppies that grew in Flanders, Belgium, where so many of the Allied dead are buried, and which inspired the poem, which even today is almost a national treasure in Canada, "In Flanders Field", by Lt.Col. John McCrae, Canadian Field Artillery.

What captured me was the military parade to the memorial. Led by contingents from the Royal Canadian Navy (being the senior service, of course), a Canadian Army regiment (often the Canadian Guards Regiment), the Royal Canadian Air Force, there followed the veterans - - First World War, Second World War, Korea. (Since then vets from Bosnia and Afghanistan no doubt take part.) But the group that moved and cheered the crowds most were the few Boer War vets - - a very few proudly marching, albeit some with canes and crutches, some in wheel chairs pushed by Boy Scouts, some in hospital beds, again with Boy Scouts. Headgear properly worn, medals polished, mustaches waxed.

Each year this contingent grew smaller, until the last year I was there only five Boer War vets made it. And we saluted them, and we cheered them, and we wept.

Whether you call it Armistice, Remembrance, or Veterans' Day, I still wear my red poppy on November 11th, remembering the fallen.

A closing comment.

Together with the US, and over a dozen other NATO countries which together comprise the UN-authorized International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Canada has maintained a strong commitment to the Afghanistan mission with over 23,000 having served there since 2001.Currently, 2,500 Canadians remained deployed in Kandahar province, which has been described by Afghan President Karzai as "the centre of gravity" for his country.This work has regrettably come at a high cost, however, with Canadian military personnel suffering casualty rates the highest in ISAF as a proportion of troops deployed. To date, Canadian fatalities number 135, many from the regiment I first joined in 1951, the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Alberta, four the sons of former mates I served with in the PPCLI.

The video is by Canadian singer-songwrite Terry Kelly.

The Salish Sea, Finally!

2009-11-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

The term the Salish Sea was first proposed in 1988 by marine biologist Bert Webber, who recognized the need for a single geographic term that encompassed the entire ecosystem, spanning across the international border. Having a name to identify the entire area calls attention to the trans‐border commonality of water, air, wildlife and history. Rather than being a replacement for any of the existing names, the designation Salish Sea is an overlay which includes and unites the established and familiar names of the various water and land bodies (the Strait of Georgia, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, Gulf Islands, San Juan Islands, etc.). The name also pays tribute to the Coast Salish peoples who have inhabited the area since long before Euro‐American explorers first arrived.

On October 30th the Washington State Board on Geographic Names (the folk who decide what to call creeks, mountains and other natural features) named the inland waterways shared by Washington and British Columbia the Salish Sea. The British Columbia government approved the name six days earlier. Of course this still has to be OK’d by the US Board of Geographic Names to make it official and, as Mike Sato, communications director for People for Puget Sound writes, “the real official measure is its adoption into customary usage”.

Many of us have long favored the name Salish Sea, not only because it encompasses the waters that we cruise, not only that it sees all these waters as common body when we look at environmental and pollution issues, but because it simply makes sense to honor the indigenous peoples into whose lands and on whose waters we move.

But all this surfaces (no pun intended) an interesting conundrum: what exactly is Puget Sound? A popular description seems to encompass everything up to the Straits, and perhaps (with a bit of grandiosity) even including the waters up to Anacortes, if not the San Juan Islands, let alone as far north as Bellingham. Caleb Maki, executive secretary of the Washington State Board on Geographic Names, calls this the “Puget Sound Creep”, describing in an earlier email to me that Puget Sound keeps "getting larger and larger."

For the record, officially, Puget Sound starts at that body of salt water lying South of Admiralty Inlet/Possession Sound down to just above Olympia.

So, to now be really politically correct, what about all those titles that identify themselves using the descriptive Puget Sound? As People for Puget Sound’s Mike Sato opines in his blog, “renaming ‘People For the Salish Sea’, ‘Salish Sea Partnership’, ‘Salish Sea Business Journal’? Nah.”

Interesting.

Want to weigh in on this? Just post your comments and let's see where we end up.

Meanwhile, for me, here’s to the Salish Sea, at long last!

("The Salish Sea Map", cartographer Stefan Freelan, WWU, 2009")

Editor's note. Some readers have made comments on earlier blogs, but regretfully, in the editing process they were dropped. If you previously sent a comment but failed to see it, would you please resend? Thank you, and again, my apologies.

Ready to Move Up?

2009-10-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

If you're thinking of "moving up" you might want to look at this nifty vessel which just left Turku, Finland today for Florida, all 1,184 feet of her with a 154' beam and a gross tonnage of 220,000.

Oh, yes. sixteen decks and 2,700 cabins should accommodate all 6,300 of your closest friends. But you'll have to consider that she cruises at only 22 knots.

The MV Oasis of the Seas is Royal Caribbean International's latest vessel. For great pictures go to their image gallery.

Looking for a broker to help put you at the helm? Go to Northwest Yacht Brokers Association. And you won't have to wait for the great January 29th boat show!

"That's The Way It Is", Walter Cronkite

2009-10-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

Television pioneer, legendary and trusted news anchor, renowned journalist, intrepid sailor, Walter Cronkite died this past July.

In Waterway Guide; Navigational Advice Covering Waters of the Delaware Bay, the New Jersey Coast, Long Island Sound, the Coasts of Massachusetts and Maine, published in 1986, Walter Cronkite wrote this Introduction (my edit updating in blue and red).

Considering this was written some 23-years ago, his words still ring true today. And, like so many of you, I've admired his style!

Of all those plaques sold to brighten up one's yacht, the one that reads "A collision at sea can ruin your whole day" speaks volumes. A collision at sea, or a hard grounding in breakers, or a fire on board, or a man overboard - - any one of these calamities certainly will ruin your whole day if not your whole life.

Anyone who has nudged a dock or hit a rock at a comparatively measly speed of five or six knots knows that even a little bit of momentum can do a powerful lot of damage. Now engines and hulls are getting more and more efficient, cruising speeds of large boats are soaring into the 30s and 40s, and there is even talk of a new speedster that can exceed 100 knots. Imagine that one thundering through your harbor with a dingbat at the wheel happily waving a can of beer at friends!

Concern for boating safety is growing in direct proportion to the greater number of vessels - - from sailboats to floating palaces - - that share our waters. Anyone who spends considerable time on board is aware of the hazards of increased traffic, and few mariners, I suspect, have not witnessed either an actual accident or at least a near miss that inspired frightened awe.

In a recent issue of The Practical Sailor, the editors of that splendid publication learned just how lively the concern about boating safety is. New boat owners have been writing to the editor with the suggestion that the magazine start rating boats according to safety. Practical Sailor notes the impracticality of that and adds the sage, if obvious, admonition that "any boat is only as safe as the person driving it." Put another way: no boat is safe if you've got a dingbat at the wheel.

Greater speeds and more crowded waters may eventually force operator licensing. Now, no one but an advanced masochist favors more government regulation. We all like to think that part of the lure of the open water is the escape from land-based restrictions. Seemingly every boating organization opposes licensing, just as the automobile associations opposed drivers' licenses up until the 1930s. Now, of course, no one in their right mind opposes automobile drivers' licenses. (Washington State instituted a mandatory Boater Safety Course in 2006. Oregon and Canada also have similar requirements.)

In the past few years more and more states have responded to concerns about boating safety by licensing juveniles to operate boats. Some, like New York State, have extensive training and testing programs, and if the early evidence of success in this effort is borne out, the pressure to extend the program to adults may increase..

Any licensing procedure would encounter the problem of the shortage of enforcement machinery - - a problem that already hampers the enforcement of safe boating practices. The budgetary squeeze on national, state, and local governments has discouraged support for increasing maritime police forces, and obligated the Coast Guard to reduce its boating safety personnel to a paltry 199 nationwide. The magnitude of the Coast Guard's budget problem is underlined by the dilemma created by the 1984 federal legislation making it unlawful to operate a boat while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. The noble idea has been stymied by Congress' inability to come up with funding for enforcement machinery.

Meanwhile, the safety of all of us on the water is up to each of us on the water. How mind-bogglingthat all those who venture forth at the helm of any vessel - - from dingy to cruiser - - don't understand that simple truth. Safe boating is no mystery: nine tenths of it is in alertness and anticipation. For Mariners, "What do I do if..." should be the question foremost in mind. An awful lot of trouble can be avoided if the helmsman is thinking and weighing the variables that cold affect the boat in the minutes and hours ahead.

The first duty of any skipper is to learn the rules of the road, pilotage, and simple navigation. Coast Guard Auxiliary or Power Squadron courses are available nationwide. Commercial correspondence courses are cheap insurance compared to the cost of ignorance. (CruiseMasters Boating Instruction has been instructing Northwest power boaters with actual hands-on experience since 1997.) At the very least, a thorough reading of Chapman's Piloting or another good book on boating fundamentals, followed by some stringent self-testing, can do the job. Some of us who might be more forgetful than others find it advantageous to do a little self-test drill at the beginning of each boating season to refresh our memories. I favor a talk session with my crew during which we throw traffic and navigation problems at each other for quick solutions.

A final word: courtesy. That curiously old-fashioned idea is one of the fundamentals of safe boating. If we keep in mind the other fellow's comfort as well as our own, a lot of the dangerous, nerve-racking situations that occur on our crowded waters could be avoided. Let him (or her) cross in front, let him get securely in his slip before you try to wedge past - - what's the hurry? Put your anchor down to give others room for theirs and to swing freely. Lack of courtesy is the sole cause of one of the most annoying and frequently disastrous incidents at sea: the tumulus wake from a passing boat can easy swamp boats, causing fires from upset stoves, or toss crew overboard.

Man wasn't meant to live on the water - - and certainly not in it. When we go boating we are venturing into a hostile world, but most of us feel the enjoyment received is worth the risk involved. But for our own sake and that of others, all of us should reduce this risk to the minimum possible.

- Walter Cronkite

And that's the way it is.

The 33rd Wooden Boat Festival

2009-09-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend's 2009 Wooden Boat Festival was wonderful. It had been a few years since we last made the trek to Port Townsend for this annual second-weekend-in-September event, only to discover that the Festival has increased in so many ways - - more entries, more vendors, and good crowds. Of course the weather was grand!

(Be sure to click on a picture to see it full screen)

Lines and lines waiting to buy tickets for this 33rd annual festival.

From prams to classic sedans. The 1909 Edwardian houseboat cruiser, M/V Lotus (extreme left).
We were serenaded by a band on the boat-deck of the classic M/V Lotus..

An assortment of good brass at the Davey & Co., United Kingdom booth.

The marina was full.

Wood, as far as the eye can see.

Nice. Very nice.

Kayaks awaiting.

Oh, to row in comfort.

A neat turn of wood.

A fender, please, not a bumper.

He said that he had started out to make a canoe, but then something went wrong.

At rest.

Off the beach.

A great sailing helm.

Very shiny.

Three nicely in a row.

A longboat coming in.

And kids made and sailed their own boats and dreamed daunting adventures.

They came by land and by sea.

Tall ship.

A special treat, and perhaps our highlight, was to see the almost completed 26,600 square-foot Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation. Be sure to take this in when next in Port Townsend.
Inside the NWMC.
Lots of open space for boat building.

Boatwrights at the NWMC explain their craft.
Shot from a second floor balcony.
A compass-rose seen from the NWMC balcony, and looking out to the entrance of the Port Hudson Marina
Simply put.

Don't miss this annual event for wooden boat lovers worldwide. So, see you there next September for the 34th Festival?

It is simply good for the soul!